I owned a Newport 31 which was a 33'' sans the sugar scoop transom extension. It was the roomiest 31" I''d ever seen and well finished for a 30'' production. It was not a good sailing boat however. It had a lot of bad habits the worst of which was a vicious weather helm due to the extremely flat bottom and hard turn to the bilges. I would recomend a Catalina 30 over the Newport in your size and price range. The Newport did have a single handing advantage in that the primary winches were close enough to be operated by the helmsman. The Catalina''s winches are too far away for this.

These boards are always interesting because of the different perspectives. Perhaps Sailmc can talk about how close the N-30 and N-31 hulls are in shape, because the N-30 that I know about is a pretty forgiving boat. The Annapolis Sailing School has a fleet of N-30''s (most probably from the late "70''s to maybe the early ''80''s) they use for all kinds of cruising and weekend "learning to sail" classes. The school uses the N-30 because it is roomy, reasonably well built, and also easy for students to sail. I took 3 different classes on N-30''s way back when, and the instructors and students alike loved the boats.

In fact, a friend of mine, the current editor of a well-known sailing magazine published in Annapolis, served as an instructor for the sailing school in his younger days. He loves to talk about the many Kent Island Circumnavigations he did with students on N-30''s. He was thinking about buying an N-30 as a stable cruising platform for his young family. (He ended up with an Alerion Express 28 in a sweetheart deal he couldn''t refuse.) The N-30 is not fast, but it is solid.

I can''t reconcile all this with the above comments on the N-31, a boat I also have sailed on quite a bit as racing crew for a friend. One Governor''s Cup race (an overnight race down the Chesapeake)we had 15-22 knot apparent winds on the nose most of the night and the boat did great. Nothing amiss in its handling, primarily I think because it takes a lot of wind to move that boat. I did quite a bit of steering that night, too.

The Catalina 30 is also a fine boat for your purpose and price range, but also is known for wanting to round up in a hurry in a gust. They can be a handful in a blow. Been there, done that, too.

In all probability the N 31 is a differnt hull than the N 30. It is really closer to the N 33 which seemed to be the same boat with an 18" sugar scoop transom extension. I sailed my N 31 for 6 years. It heeled early and often and reqired reefing at 15kts apparent. It rounded up at 16. A backstay adjuster gained me 1 knt. on the wind speed. Don''t get me wrong I loved the boat but she was a beast to sail. I believe the huge accomodations came before the hull design on the drafting board. I had alot of trouble finding 36'' boats with meaningful increases in accomodations when I wanted to move up. Having slipped next to and sailed the Cat. 30 many times I feel it had almost as big an interior but much better behaved sailing characteristics than my N 31. Judging from SailorMitch''s comments on the wind required to move the boat I''d say there was also a difference in SA/Disp between the N 31 and the N 30. I believe Sailnet has a Newport email board. That might be a good place to get some other opinions.
Now it''s off the the Strictly Sail show in Chicago. A lovely 4 hour drive through winter storm watch conditions. Ahh three weeks to the Grenadines!

"The Newport did have a single handing advantage in that the primary winches were close enough to be operated by the helmsman. The Catalina''s winches are too far away for this."

Having an autopilot really helps mitigate these types of issues and singlehandling most boats, ever ones much larger than these. Though I do tend to agree, that I''d rather have the winchs right back there at the helm. But if I had a crew on the boat, they might rather have the primary winches away from the helm so that they the two wouldn''t interfere with each other.

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